


Raisons

by tetsubinatu



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:02:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetsubinatu/pseuds/tetsubinatu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James can't stop fantasising about his Inspector.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Le coeur a ses raisons

**Author's Note:**

> This actually came from a lighthearted prompt from Sysann. She challenged me to write a believable story about them having sex in every possible position... I completely failed at that - but this is what came out of it! 
> 
> Written for Lewis_challenge Summer Festival on LJ. Lots of angst in the first two parts!
> 
> Many thanks to Som for her last-minute 'does-this-make-sense' beta check :)

_Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.  
(The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing).  
_ \- Blaise Pascal

_raison d'etre_ \- the purpose that justifies a thing's existence

.

It seems harmless enough when it starts. James knows that he shouldn't fantasise about a friend. It crosses a line, sets a bad precedent, but when he sits in his armchair, alone, sometimes he can't help imagining the best of company, _Robbie, raising a beer with him and then slipping to his knees to shoulder James' legs apart and undo his zip, his hand warm and confident at its task._

~

The dialogue he imagines is never sparkling. Sometimes there's a declaration of love, or a more pragmatic suggestion of friends with benefits. James' hand stands in for Robbie's hand or mouth and he feels happy, just for a short while.

No real harm in that, James supposes. But it doesn't end there.

Next he starts fantasising in the car, bored as he traverses the same set of streets to and from work. He imagines Robbie's hand on his shoulder.

 _“Pull over lad.”_ and then _“Come here.”_

_James, yielding to the tug of Robbie's hand, ending up astride him in the passenger seat where they can kiss and Robbie's hands can roam freely, cupping his arse or his neck with equal strength and gentleness._

This one becomes a staple favourite of James', never failing to start his day by giving him a smile on his face.

~

He likes to end the day happily too, tucked up in bed with imaginary Robbie _spooning behind him._

_“My own lad,” he says, dropping his face into James' hair or neck._

_“I can't imagine being without you,”_ he says once. (James doesn't let that happen again.) 

_Robbie's arm lies across his waist, casually possessive. James basks in the warmth of his affection._

_Sometimes Robbie rubs himself, slow and sweet between James' cheeks until he comes. James pushes himself back, giving himself for Robbie's pleasure and knowing that afterwards, Robbie will reach a hand over to help James to his own drowsy fulfilment._

~

As such appetites do, James' appetite for these fantasies grows as the weeks pass. Running along the towpath he imagines that Robbie is just behind the next copse of birches, waiting for him to arrive.

_“Where've you been?” he asks impatiently. “I have to get back to the office soon.” He pushes James against the smooth bark, taking his mouth with demanding tongue, hands working at James waistband. When James protests at the public setting he scoffs, “No-one comes down here, James. It's perfectly safe.” James kicks off his joggers and pants and spreads his legs for his DI to rub his cock up into the gap, nudging James' balls._

_“Push your thighs together, come on now,” Robbie says breathlessly. “Just a bit more. Oh Christ that's good, James.” And then he groans as he comes, deep and satisfied._

~

James knows he's in trouble when he can't use the loo without imagining _Robbie in the next toilet stall, rubbing himself off in time to James' own stroking hands. He can hear every stifled gasp until the last final rush to orgasm, when a muffled 'James!' is grunted into Robbie's own forearm. They come at the same instant._

It's getting beyond a joke. James finds his eyes lingering on the unmarked stretch of Robbie's lightly furred arm where there should be a bruise, he almost reaches out to claim the lover's accustomed privilege of touch, a stifled movement that draws Robb... Lewis' attention.

“James?” he asks, a frown of puzzlement crossing his brow.

“Nothing,” James says. “Just a thought.”

Ro... Lewis' eyes linger on him doubtfully but he turns away again and resumes his previous course.

James has to stop. He has to...

~

He goes to a club. He can pick up someone there, replace fantasy with reality. The lights strobe until he has a headache and no-one who approaches him stirs any desire in him, not the body-builder with the cocky grin or the smartly suited businessman who compliments him on his tie; neither the botoxed older man in leather trousers nor the uni student whose mates are pushing him towards James, daring him in not-so-hushed whispers.

“I'm sorry, mate,” he tells the boy. “It's not you.” He pushes away from the bar and exits into the brutally cold wind on the street.

He tries wanking to his old fantasies and falls asleep before he achieves more than a few stirrings, only to wake to the sensation of _Lewis, holding him in his arms, warm and safe._

“Robbie,” he murmurs, but at the sound he wakes up fully, and knows he is alone.

~

_Robbie, pushing him up against a wall, pushing into him as James' legs hold on tight._

_Robbie, cuffing him to his bed, only to torture him with small nips to every part of his body before finally seating himself on James cock and riding him hard._

_Robbie, bending him over his desk late at night and fingering him until he comes all over his keyboard._

James is possibly going insane.

~

“I have to leave the police force,” he tells Lewis one day. They're standing over another body, a young woman who was stabbed this morning in a quiet cobblestoned alley as the bells chimed across the most beautiful city in England.

Lewis slumps, as a man might who has taken a blow he's expecting.

“You haven't been happy for a while,” he says, rubbing his face wearily. “What will you do?”

James stares at the dead girl's hands, chipped nailpolish and ink stains.

“James?”

James' throat seizes up. He shakes his head.

Something has to change. He's taken the first step but the path before him promises only more darkness and despair. Perhaps he will find the light again on the other side.

.


	2. Pascal's Wager

James is scrubbing a saucepan when the knock on the door lets him know that Lewis is there. Lewis always knocks the same way, but it's not as if anyone else ever comes to his door in any case. James grabs a tea-towel and dries his hands hastily before opening the door.

“Thought you might not be answering your door,” Lewis says. He is half-turned to go, as if unsure of his welcome.

“I was just washing up,” James explains. Lewis leads the way into the kitchen, so James resumes scrubbing, after a glance at him. He's something on his mind, that's clear, and James doesn't really want to talk about it.

Lewis finds a tea towel and starts drying a glass. He's leaving streaks but James doesn't say anything.

“Nice work today,” Lewis says. They've wound up the case and, although the girl isn't admitting anything, they'll get their conviction. The evidence is watertight.

“Thanks,” James says drily. He examines the gleaming saucepan which is the last item to be scrubbed, and sighs as he stacks it on the side. Lewis is still wielding his tea towel ineffectively so James pulls out another one and starts drying beside him, but all too soon there's nothing left and Lewis leans against the wall as James puts everything away.

“Are you all right?” Lewis asks.

James closes his eyes. He's not; he's really not. “Sure,” he says flippantly. “Right as rain, just peachy, Sir.”

“Don't...” Lewis says through gritted teeth. He stops. 

James looks at him; his eyes are crinkled with affectionate concern and something inside James just gives way. 

“No,” he says at last. Lewis takes a step towards him and James sinks to his knees in the middle of his kitchen floor. His forehead falls against Lewis' thigh and Lewis goes utterly still.

“What's wrong, lad?” he asks carefully, and James lets out a sound that could be a laugh or a sob, or a gasp. He's imagined Lewis in this kitchen so many times, imagined dropping to his knees to blow him, or the reverse - imagined Lewis on his knees for him, mouthing him as he made the coffee or stirred pasta at the stove. He's never imagined this, though: Lewis dropping awkwardly to sit on the floor beside him, his back against James' kitchen cupboards.

“Talk to me, James.” Lewis' eyes are the eyes of a copper; they've seen cruelty and callousness, far too much death and deceit, but they rest on James with such tender affection that James thinks that he might dissolve into pure light, just to be one with their blue depths. James smiles wrily and leans forward to fit his mouth gently over Robbie's, resting in a chaste and unmistakeable kiss against his DI's lips.

Lewis' mouth opens – in shock, James assumes – but he doesn't move away. Doesn't move closer either - but in a moment James feels his breath resume, whispering air which eases them apart.

There is no sound inside the flat as James pulls himself across to sit beside Lewis against the cupboard, and waits.

“Me?” Robbie asks. “No, that can't be it. I'm just...”

“You,” James says. His voice cracks a little. “I don't expect...” he rasps. “I wasn't going to say...”

“I'm not,” Robbie says uncertainly, “I mean, you know I'm not... gay.”

“Not that there's anything wrong with that,” James quotes without bitterness.

“Lad, you know I'd do anything for you...”

“But you can't change your sexual orientation,” James agrees, his gaze dropping to the scuffed linoleum. He feels suddenly as if someone cut all his strings and left him a boneless, exhausted heap of rags on the floor.

“I've missed you,” Lewis says suddenly. 

James looks up at him. He looks as tired as James has ever seen him. He isn't sure what Lewis means. “I haven't gone yet,” he says slowly.

“You've been gone for a long time now,” Lewis says. “I've had a walking, talking Hathaway beside me, but you weren't there, take it from me.”

James can see what he means now. He's been living in his fantasies most of the time, only devoting enough of himself to the outside to keep the shell of his body moving through the routine of the day.

“I... I've tried...” he starts. “That's why I have to go.”

“Because you have... feelings. For... me.”

James nods and some expression that James has never seen before crosses Lewis' face. “There's nothing to lose, is there? It's already gone,” Lewis says in his slow, deliberate voice.

James tries to breathe but his chest is seized up tight and he can't... he can't...

“Come here,” Lewis says in a shocking echo of James' favourite fantasy. And then his arm goes around James, pulling him in close so that James' head is resting on his shoulder. Astoundingly, James feels a kiss on the side of his head.

“I don't want to lose you,” Robbie says, his arm warm and heavy around James' shoulders. “I... I honestly haven't a clue if I can even do this, but I do know that there's nothing to lose by giving it a shot. So breathe, soft lad, and then you can give me a proper kiss in a minute.”

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pascal's Wager actually concerns the existence of God, but otherwise the quote is quite apposite:
> 
> _If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is._


	3. Coda

The bells are ringing across Oxford again. The afternoon sunlight slants across James bed. He's shed his t-shirt, but his trousers are still on and his legs are tangled through Robbie's. Robbie's buttons are all undone and his hair is sticking out every which way. James likes the way it looks.

“Have you ever heard of the Kinsey Scale?” he asks.

“Tell me,” Robbie says. His hand in James' hair moves idly, and James thinks that his own hair must be as wild as Robbie's.

“It dates back to the forties and it certainly isn't a comprehensive examination of the possibilities, but it's still a useful tool. It's a sliding scale from exclusively heterosexual at one end to exclusively homosexual at the other end.”

“With, um, bisexual in the middle?” Robbie ventures.

“Mmmhmm. Zero to six, with Bisexual at three.”

Robbie considers this. “So you'd be, what, a three?”

James has thought about this before. “Three point five isn't an option, so I suppose I'm a four. 'Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual'.”

“I'd've put myself at a zero until today,” Robbie says. “I guess I've moved up to a one.”

“'Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally Hathaway-sexual',” James agrees.

“Dunno - right at this moment I'd call myself predominantly Hathaway-sexual,” Robbie teases with a grin. The fondness on his face makes James want to unbutton his trousers and try another of his fantasies - but it's possible that they've pushed enough boundaries for one day. Instead he leans across to kiss Robbie again, because he can.

Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. James can't even begin to express the deep, wondering love he has for the man who cares enough to try.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling._ \- Blaise Pascal


End file.
